After
Hurricane Isaac devastated their home last August, LaPlace residents
Michelle and Thomas Calmes did everything they were supposed to. When the water
receded, the couple set to work themselves, tearing out waterlogged drywall and
flooring to avoid mold growth; their quick thinking stifled the issue before it
began.

But
they needed a contractor, and fast.

They
asked friends for recommendations, and chose one who had been soliciting work
in the neighborhood. Ultimately, they settled on Ernest Blackwell. Little did
they know that nine months later, with another hurricane season once again bearing down on South Louisiana, they would be racing against the clock
to fix their home. The couple says they paid Blackwell $54,000 of the $70,000 they
received from their insurance company, but that his work left their house in shambles.

St. John Parish law enforcement authorities say Blackwell is being investigated for possible contractor fraud.

Since
Hurricane Isaac damaged roughly 7,000 homes in St. John the Baptist Parish, contractor
fraud has been rampant in LaPlace, according to Det. Michael Shard, who heads
up the St. John Parish Sheriff's Office's fraud investigations unit. Shard said
that since August 2012, there have been more than 60 cases of contractor
fraud in the parish, resulting in several arrests. The St. John Sheriff's
Office has been working with the St. John Parish District Attorney, in addition
to the state Inspector General, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the
Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, to
investigate the claims.

"We
started getting a lot of complaints," Shard said. "As with any disaster, people
who do construction know that they're needed, so there was a flood of
contractors coming from everywhere, some familiar with Louisiana laws, some
not.

"We've
had people show up and quote $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 jobs and they'll start
putting up Sheetrock and they never come back," Shard continued. "It's safe to
say, through an investigation, if someone is paid $80,000 to do work and they
only put up Sheetrock, that's a strong case for a theft. You may have instances
where contractors are paid for materials and labor, and they don't use that
money to do the job they're supposed to do. It's misapplication of funds."

Shard
said that some contractors the Sheriff's Office have pursued had been operating
without the proper licenses; others were just plain swindling their clients.

According to a St. John Parish Sheriff's
Office report, Blackwell said he operated a company called Professional
Remodeling Specialists, LLC. But after Blackwell entered into a contract with
the Calmeses, and accepted tens of thousands of dollars, he failed to complete
much of the work and didn't pay subcontractors, resulting in a lien on the Calmeses' home, the report said. The Calmeses told sheriff's investigators they want to pursue charges against Blackwell after not being able to recoup "unused money paid for services not rendered,'' according to the report.

The couple said in the report that it has not been able to contact Blackwell. Efforts by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune to contact Blackwell were unsuccessful.

The Calmeses live on Oak Shadow Court in a LaPlace subdivision. After
the storm, damages to their home and its
contents were estimated at approximately $70,000. They hired Blackwell to repair and renovate the home for $84,000.

"We
were living in our house, we had nowhere to go," Michelle Calmes said,
"[Blackwell] schmoozed us. He seemed to be reading my mind about what we wanted
done and what we needed done. But we started working with him in October and in
January, when we let him go, we still couldn't move back into the main part of
our house. I feel so stupid."

The Calmes residence.

By
January, Calmes said the writing had been on the wall for weeks. Calmes said
the couple's insurance company issued the checks designated for home repairs to
the mortgage company, which then issued the checks to Blackwell. But on several
occasions, Blackwell would ask that Michelle Calmes purchase items such as flooring and
fixtures on her credit card, promising to reimburse her when the work was done.
By her estimation, Blackwell pocketed more than $15,000 for materials she
purchased or which he did not reimburse her.

Calmes
said Blackwell also hired two crews of subcontractors, one of which she said Blackwell
never paid because he said the crew was doing substandard work. After firing the
first crew, Blackwell hired a second crew.

But
the second crew, Calmes said, was no better. She said the tiles were laid incorrectly,
the floors were scratched and uneven and, worst of all, the plumbing was so bad
a second contractor hired after Blackwell was terminated had to replace the
system in its entirety. In addition to paying $54,000 to Blackwell, Calmes
said the couple has had to plow another
$41,000 into the house to fix his mistakes. As a result, the couple has had to
take out an SBA loan.

"This
contractor did more damage to us than the storm," Thomas Calmes said. "We call
him 'Hurricane Ernest.' You can understand why people would commit suicide or a
marriage would break up, or people would just walk away from their houses
completely."

According to
the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors, Blackwell held a pair of
contractor's licenses from May 2010 to February 2013, when the board revoked the licenses. Licensing
Board spokeswoman Kara Kearney said that the board began
receiving complaints about Blackwell in February of 2011.

Unfortunately,
the Calmes' story is not wholly unusual in LaPlace, which was severely flooded when Isaac pushed water from Lake Pontchartrain across huge swaths of the community.

A Kenner Police boat makes its way through flood water in LaPlace, Thursday, August 30, 2012. Thousands of homes in St. John the Baptist Parish were flooded and damaged during Hurricane Isaac.
Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune

Riverlands
Subdivision resident Susan Guidry said that she, too, was taken by a contractor
-- one she trusted so much that she ordered him a credit card linked to her
personal bank account.

"I
made every mistake in the book," Guidry said, beginning with hiring a friend's
brother to do her repairs, and relying on a verbal agreement rather than a
written contract. Her second mistake was giving him a credit card; she would
later learn that the contractor spent $1,500 at Harrah's Casino in her name.
This was after she'd already handed him a $5,000 advance for work that would
never be done. Before long, the contractor had disappeared, she said.

Shard said the contractor who Guidry hired -- Richard Camanita -- was arrested and booked with engaging in business of contracting with harm
and damage, and false personation.

Guidry,
who just a few months before the hurricane had split with her husband, was
living alone, and knew nothing of home repairs. Ultimately, she was at the
mercy of her contractor. Now, Guidry said she is ill-prepared for hurricane
season.

"I
thought my house would be ready for Christmas last year. Then I was shooting
for Mardi Gras. Now I realize, you can only do what you can do," Guidry said.
"I needed every dime of that insurance money."